Performance Analysis of Low Head Hydraulic Air Compressor

Walid Aniss Aissa, Salama Abdel-Hady Mohamed, Kamal Abdel-Fatah Ahmed

Egyptian Electricity Holding Company, Aswan, Egypt.
Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering at Rabigh, King Abdul-Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Mechanical Power Department, High Institute of Energy, South Valley University, Aswan, Egypt.

DOI: 10.4236/sgre.2010.11003                

Abstract

Hydraulic Air Compressor (HAC) is a device which converts hydraulic energy to energy of compressed air. A better exploitation of this hydraulic resource is currently investigated. The aim of the current work is to analyze a low head open type HAC in terms of compression ratio and HAC efficiency. The performance of HAC is both experimentally and theoretically investigated for various air admission system parameters (air tube length and diameter), downcomer length and hydraulic head. The results are both presented and discussed. Variation of the mean diameter of air bubbles in the downward flow in the downcomer is both determined and investigated. The losses in the whole system are classified, investigated and its impact on HAC is discussed.

Keywords

Experimental, Hydraulic Air Compressor, Performance

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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